“Maybe we made it too easy for him.” Feeney puffed out his cheeks. “We’re scaring him off.”
“I don’t care how many layers he gets through. What he’s going to find is bogus anyway. I want his location.”
McNab glanced back at Eve. “He’s a pogo stick on Zeus, Dallas. He’s bouncing, then switching off, banking back. The bastard’s good.”
“Better than you?”
“I didn’t say that. We’ve got echoes, we’ve got cross and junctions, so he’s in New York. Probably.”
“I know he’s in New York.”
“I’m verifying it,” he said, testy now.
Roarke laid a hand on McNab’s shoulder. “I doubt you want chapter and verse here, Lieutenant. But imagine you were in a foot chase with a suspect who could, at any given time, pop ten blocks over, or take a jump to London, zip over to the Ukraine, then land again a block behind you. It might take you some time to catch the bloody bastard.”
“Okay, all right. How much time?”
“If he keeps at this pace, and we’re able to track those echoes, extrapolate the junctions, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. Maybe three.”
She didn’t curse. Var might have been bouncing all over hell and back in cyberspace, but as long as they had him on the monitor, he was in one place in reality.
“Can you run one of these at home?” she asked Roarke.
“I can, yes.”
“Do you have any problems with that?”
Feeney gave her an absent wave. “A secondary setup at another source might help flank the bastard.”
“Okay then, I’m going to work from home. In the quiet. I need to put this all down in a way that Whitney doesn’t have me committed when I report to him tomorrow. You can save me a lot of trouble by locating the murdering fuckhead.”
“If he keeps up the hack, we’ll have him. Yeah, yeah, he’s in New York. See there. Now let’s start scraping away sectors.”
“I’ll hang here,” Peabody said. “Keep them supplied with liquids.”
“Be ready for a go tonight.” Eve looked back at the team. It came down to trust again. If they said they’d pin him, they’d pin him.
“Maybe I should just take it to my office,” Eve considered as they headed out.
“Feeney’s right about the value of a secondary source. I can do more at home, and I have better equipment. Added to that, I’d like my hands in it, and here I’d just step on Ian’s toes.”
“All right. Set up at home, and I’ll spend the next hour or two trying to find a way to write a report that doesn’t make me sound like a lunatic.”
“You came off quite sane when you ran it by me, and then the rest. Push the science. I’ll help you with it,” he added when she didn’t quite muffle the groan. “We’ll dazzle the commander with your in-depth knowledge of advance holonetics.”
“I feel a headache coming on.”
He brushed his lips over the top of her head as they stepped into the garage. “There now.”
“One way or the other, he’s in the box with me tomorrow. My turf, my area. And then we’ll see who . . . Shit, shit, could it be that simple?”
“Could what?”
“Turf. Area.” Shit! she thought again and pulled up short. “I have to figure he’s got his hole within the basic parameters of his place, the partners, the warehouse. He’s efficient, careful, meticulous. Why would he risk being seen—and maybe even by his so-called friends—going in or out of another building?”
Roarke uncoded the doors, pulled hers open, then leaned on it. “His own building. He’d want his special equipment close, wouldn’t he? Easier to secure, to monitor that security, to use whenever he has the whim.”